Concept image of a small yellow four wheel skid-steer robot

Scout

A prototype for the DARPA Grand Challenge

Scout is a little robot that is just beginning to take shape.

I became excited about building a robust autonomous outdoor vehicle after reading about the DARPA Grand Challenge. The challenge is to have an autonomous vehicle drive a 300 mile off road course through the desert. The course consists of a number of way-points and path constraints. One of the big challenges will be the avoidance of the other autonomous vehicles during the race.

I had plans to visit my local Jeep dealer and see about getting a sponsorship and maybe a used Jeep with an automatic transmission, power steering and perhaps an electronic cruise control. My hopes were that I could adapt the automatic & power controls to computer control without too much difficulty.

Reality began to set in slowly when my friends and wife described in loving terms that I was on a fools errand. The challenge is very difficult for many technical reasons. A friend, whose opinion I trust maintains that the challenge will go unclaimed for at least 10 years. I love difficult technical challenges, and I am completely irrational when it comes to designing and building robots.

The argument that really got my attention, however, was the time and money issue. I never seem to have enough of either and making a full fledged DARPA entry was going to cost me a lot of both time and money.

This is where Scout comes in. Scout will be made on a shoestring budget, using components that I already have, or that I can buy cheaply.

I have recently relocated to near Boulder Colorado. All of my old junk electronics connections are moldering back in California. To make matters worse, I have sold a number of my tools while we were marshaling for our Grand Move To Colorado. Scout is going to have the added effect of getting me better connected to the geeky side of Boulder.

Scout's back-of-the-envelop design.

I want to make a small, inexpensive outdoor robot that will serve as a development platform for the sensing, navigation and route planning algorithms needed for a DARPA Grand Challenge entry.
Scout will consist of a number of sub-systems that have well identified interfaces (both physical and logical.) The goal of these well defined interfaces is the reuse of the main computer deck and sensor array from Scout to a larger more capable robot in the future.
The robot will be small so that I can easily transport it to various locations in the back of my truck.
It will be reasonable water resistant, but not necessarily immune to total immersion.
It should have a reasonable pedestrian warning system when active.
Scout will have a fail-safe kill switch on the chassis that is easily activated .
The robot will also have a RF remote controlled kill or dead man switch that will have a range of approximately a quarter mile.

I plan to add photos and diagrams to this site as Scout progresses.

Here is a link to the Scout blog. I will maintain a log of my progress with photos and diagrams.

Here is a link to robot resources that I have found useful, or inspiring in some way.

Please send your comments to: webmaster@thefrog.com.